The Ninth Thing will Generate More--Thing #9

Extra! Extra! Looks like more fun is on the way!

My son tells me I am now making "memes" which I guess is some kind of adolescent slang. I googled it and it is image generation that mimics something in our culture and has the ability to spread through social media. The newspaper image above was created at image chef. This website has many images available to add your text to, and the process is as simple as entering text into provided fields.

Using the image generators was fun and easy. I made a for dummies book cover using Dummies Book Cover Maker. It involved entering text into prescribed fields and then copying the image.  The happy face generator did not place my text correctly so I abandoned it. I found tons of things to play with at custom sign generator and its link to sign generators.org; including the dummies book cover, the confucius says sign generator, the post it generator, warning and road sign generators, the hollywood star generator, and the fortune cookie message sign generator. I could have literally lost a weekend on these generators. They all have fields to enter text, and most allow for the user to change the size and color of the text.

In the classroom, uses could vary. I think I would create some funny images for my students just to lighten the atmosphere a bit. Perhaps I would use a generator image on a handout or on a test-- I feel that a good laugh allows us all to think clearly when many of us enter a class or a test with a lot of apprehension.

We could also use the images created on name tags, or labels. If students have access to computers and printers we can use these generators to create feedback about a subject, book, or character and display the products on a bulletin board. My favorite high school English teacher, Dr. Gus Franza, marked the walls of the classroom with his own graffiti, statements about authors, novels, and fictional characters. Using image generators to create this kind of graffiti would be an expressive exercise for students.